LA COSTA’S NEXT PROJECT: SOUTH COURSE RENOVATION
SOUTH COURSE REDO PLAN SET AT LA COSTA

CARLSBAD 
Dean Martin and Desi Arnaz wouldn’t recognize it. That’s how drastically the La Costa Resort & Spa has changed over the decades since its opening in the mid-1960s. Heck, no way they’d find the pro shop.

The renovations, costing tens of millions, of the past few years have been particularly dramatic, and the two constants were the golf courses that brought worldwide attention to the resort as a favored pro tour stop.

Then the former North Course — now called the Champions — was significantly reworked in 2011, and now the South Course will get a similar overhaul that will essentially complete the entire transformation of La Costa.

“The last piece of the puzzle,” said La Costa General Manager Paul McCormick.

Architect Damian Pascuzzo and Champions Tour player Steve Pate produced the North renovation and will reprise that role for the South, which will be redubbed the Legends. McCormick said the $4 million job is set to begin on May 2, with a scheduled reopening in November.

“Artistically, it’s a chance for us to do two different things on the same canvas, and that’s fun,” Pascuzzo said. “We’ve had to think about the Legends course much differently than the Champions. On the Champions we were trying to stay closer to (original architect) Dick Wilson’s style. On the Legends we are freer to do our own thing. We’re jazzed about that.”

On the Champions, Pascuzzo and Pate arguably made the course more difficult by adding lakes, moving bunkers, pinching some fairways and adding native grass areas. For the Legends, the mandate is to maintain the course’s parkland feel while making it more playable and forgiving for the average resort player.

There will be five sets of tees, beginning with a novice set at 5,000 yards. There will be two sets between 5,000 and 6,000, two sets between 6,000 and 7,000, and the black tees will stretch just beyond 7,000.

“I think it’s still going to be a very strategic golf course and mentally challenging, but if you miss it a little bit you’re going to have more elbow room,” Pascuzzo said. “That’s the main focus. I love the idea of people coming out to La Costa and playing both courses and having two different experiences.”

Pascuzzo’s team will redo all of the tees, bunkers and greens, with the new fairways being composed of the paspalum grass that is becoming popular in areas with high salt content in the ground. The greens will be bent grass, and as with the Champions much of the work will help with drainage and ensure the grass is in better condition all year around.

By most standards, the greens on the South are tiny, and they will be expanding to average 4,500 square feet, up from 3,500, McCormick said. Pate, the former Ryder Cupper and winner of the 1988 Tournament of Champions, said there will more forgiving bunkering around the greens and the addition of more runoff and chipping areas.

“That’s where we’re getting creative, with the shaping around the greens,” Pate said.

Most golf fans recognize the South Course for the holes that it contributed to the composite Tournament Course that hosted the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions and Accenture Match Play Championship. For years, the back nine on the South served as the closing stretch.

The short, dogleg left 15th is probably the most beautiful hole on the La Costa property, and it won’t change much, though there will be more driving area for golfers on the right side.

The most dramatic alterations will come at the par-5 17th. Though Tiger Woods made the hole famous when he reached the 575-yarder in two shots while chasing down leader Tom Lehman in the 1997 Tournament of Champions, Pate said of the hole in general, “It was hit it hard, and then hit it hard again, and hit in on the green. It was pretty mundane.”

In the redo the green will be moved 40 yards closer to the tee (making it 500 yards from the blues) to give more players a chance to have a green light on the second shot. The existing pond on the right of the hole will make the challenge even greater.

“I think it’s going to be much more memorable coming down the stretch,” Pascuzzo said.

That’s the point, of course: making the whole golf experience at La Costa much more memorable.

“For the next generation of players coming up, for us to be able to position ourselves with two different experiences, I think it’s going to be incredible,” McCormick said.